The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-09-29
LOVE IN MIDAIR.

1 have just read in the columns of news
paper drama of passion. He killed her and
then put an end to his own life consequently
| he loved her. What matters he and she9
| Their love alone interests me; not because it
moves or astonishes me, not because it
| touches my heart or sets me to musing, but
because it brings remembrance of my own
young days, strange recollection of hunt
| ing trip, where Love appeared to me in mid
| air, just as crosses appeared in the skies to
| the first Christians.
/ came into the world with all the instincts
| and feelings of the primitive man, tempered,
| however, by the reason and emotions of the
civilized one. l am passionately fond of
| hunting, suil the sight of wounded animal,
of blood on the feathers of bird or on my
hands, so thrills my heart that at times /
grow faint.
| That year, at the end of autumn, cold
weather set in all ut once. I was waited on
| by my cousin, Karl de Rauville, who invited
me to 60 with him at daybreak to shoot
ducks in the marshes.
| My jolly cousin, a red haired, thick set and
bearded country gentleman, 40 years old, an
amiable semi brute with lively spirits, and
richly endowed with that French wit which
makes even mediocrity agreeable, dwelt in q
sort of farm castle situated in a wide valley
! through which flowed a river The hillsides
| to the right and left were covered with lordly
forests in which remained magnificent trees,
and where were to be found the rarest game
| birds known in that part Of France.
| Eagles were sometimes killed there; and
birds of passage, which are seldom seen in
our too densely peopled country, would in-
variably halt in the venerable branches of
the trees, az if they knew or recognized this
little bit of forest of olden times which still
remained there, to furnish them with safe
| resting place during their short stay Of a
night
In the valley were great pastures, irrigated
by little bitches and divided off by hedges;
then further away, the river, no longer con-
fined to its channel, spread out into an ex-
tensive swamp. This morass, the finest hunt
ing ground | ever saw, was my cousins great
est concern and he kept it like warren. In
the thick, waving, rustling rushes that COW
cred its surface had been cut narrow pas
sages, through which would noiselessly float
flat bottomed boats propelled by long poles.
AS these went along grazing the reeds on
either side, the fish would be seen darting
through the grass or moorhens diving out of
sight in the twinl1ling of an eye.
l am passionately fond Of the water. /
love the sea, notwithstanding it is so vast and
SO restless, the rivers SO beautiful in their on
ward flow as they pass out Of sight, and
especially the morasses where palpitates the
the entirefy unknown life of the aquatic ami
mails. The morass is a complete world on the
earth, an entirely different word-one which
hac itc ptun cpaoioc of life itc caJa -,
habitants, its passing travellers, its voices, its
noises and especially its mysteries Nothing
is more perplexing, disturbing, and even at
times more terrifying than marsh. Why is
1t that species of fright always seems to
hover over those low, water covered plains9
Why such uncertain noises among the reeds,
such strange will-o'-the-wisps, the deep 81
lence that prevails on calm nights, or those
fantastical fogs which sweep over the rushes
like the shrouds Of dead women, or still that
imperceptible ripping SO light, so soft and at
times more terrifying than the cannon of
man or the thunder of Coda All these things
cause morasses to resemble those countries
that we see in our dreams or those formidable
regions which seem to conceal dangerous
secret never to be fathomed.
No. Something else is evolved from it, A
graver deeper mystery floats through the
heavy fog. 1t may be the history of the Gre
alton itself. For was it not in muddy, stag
nant water, in the heavily saturated grounds
lying exposed to the suns heat that the first
germ of life moved and wriggled'
arrived at my cousins in the evening. 1t
was cold enough to split the rocks.
During dinner which was set in great
hall, whose sideboards, walls and ceilings
were covered with stuffed birds perched on
branches OF with extended wings, hawks, her.
rons, owls goatsuckers, tiercels, vultures, fall
cons, my cousin himself resembling some
strange creature from cold latitude, dressed
as he was in sealskin garments, was detailing
to me all the arrangements he had made for
that very night
We were to leave at $3.50, so as to reach at
4:30 the spot selected for our stand. A hut
built Of blocks of ice had been constructed
there to shield us little against the terrible
wind that blows just before daybreak, a wind
freighted with an icy GOODNESS which tears the
flesh as II with a saw, cuts as if with sword
blade, stings like nettles and burns like fire.
Ny cousin was rubbing his hands together.
II have never seen such u freeze" said he; sit
was already ~ degs. below zero at 6 this
evening""
l went to bed right after dinner, and fell
asleep in the glare Of the great blaze flaming
up my chimney. was called up at O'Clock.
putson sheepskin overcoat, and found my
cousin Karl clad in the fur of bear. After
swallowing two cups Of coffee apiece, and as
many glasses of champagne, we started off,
followed by gamekeeper and our dogs
Plongeon and Pierrot
had barely put my foot out of doors when
felt the cold penetrating my very bones
1t was one Of those nights when the earth
seems dead with cold. The frozen air stings
80 much that it feels UNFOLDING palpable,
not breath of air moves it; it nips goes
through, dries up and kills trees, plants, in
sects, and even little birds, which tumble
from the branches to the hard ground and
become as hard as it themselves, through the
effect Of the cold. The moon, in her last
quarter, leaning all TO one side and pale,
seems fainting in space, and 50 weak that
she can no longer go on, but remains there
seized by the cold, paralyzed by the rigor Of
the sky surrounding her. She sheds dry,
sad light over the world, that dying, wan
glimmer she gives US each month when near
ing her resurrection.
We were going along, side by side, Karl
and |, our backs bent, our hands in our
pockets and our guns under ouI arms. Az
we had drawn WOODEN stockings over our